We're not ones to trade in mere speculation or hearsay, or at least we don't when we can't substantiate it somehow, but last night we received a comment to one of our Brandi Hawbaker posts from a "Bob B. Bobson" of L.A. claiming that the dramabomb diva of poker had passed away at the age of 26.

You may want to know that Brandi Hawbaker (of semi-recent poker drama) died earlier this week. She was 26 years old.

I do not know any more than that, including how she died or any circumstances of her death, or even if there is a funeral planned. Even if I did know, it's nobody's business but her family and friends.

First, let us just say that we hope this isn't in any way true. Second, we have every reason to believe it isn't true as it would surely be on one of the poker forums already, posted by someone who knows her way better than we do, and we have absolutely no reason to trust this random commenter who we don't know from Adam and who has never commented on our site in the past.

But the truth is we haven't seen Brandi (aka Naami Dea) around the past month or so, she hasn't played on FTP in awhile and after trying to contact her this morning, she has not yet reached back to us.

So we figured we'd ask . . . if you know anything, give us a shout.

Also, please don't link to this post. We're not interested in incoming links based on the baseless rumor of someone's passing. Just if you know something, email us or comment. Or discuss elsewhere.

Yesterday we introduced the first part of the possibly first annual Wicked Chops Poker Awards. As promised, today = Part II (which is so important we use Roman numerals instead of just the number "2").

Best Breasts in Poker: J.C. Tran. Listen, we have no idea where the "J.C. Tran has spectacular breasts..." thing came from. Couldn't think of anything else to say about the guy and it randomly popped up and the rest is history. Having said that, look at J.C. Tran's spectacular breasts (at right). Those are without one single doubt the best breasts in poker. Yes, Lacey Jones is the hottest girl in poker, but have you seen J.C.'s breasts? How can you even make an argument that someone has better breasts? You can't. It'd be like arguing against Lionel Hutz. You're winning that one every time, son.

Worst Name of a Potential Cellmate if You're Sent to Prison: Hoyt Corkins. The thought of being "hoyt corkin'd" is utterly terrifying.

Best Neverwin Poker Thread: Justin Smith Rolls Bryan Micon. The sheer creativity in this one wins out over the never-ending supply of messed up NWP threads. After Bryan "King of the Degenerates" Micon got rolled for about $12k by Justin Smith, he turned the fuck-you-machine on full-throttle. Micon wouldn't rest until he got paid back. Be it recording countless phone conversation and putting them online, or releasing one digit of Justin Smith's SSN every hour until he got paid back, this one was constant entertainment. Watch Micon's RawVegas.tv interview on the pwning here.

Sometimes the Entities who comprise Wicked Chops Poker simply need a break from the drama. So we took a few days to decompress from the 2+2 banning scuttlebutt. (In somewhat related news, Jolene Blalock, above, will never be banned on the WCP site)

A forum is a forum and a business is a business. If you want to ban someone from your site it's well within your rights to do so, no matter how douchy it is.

And we get some of the motivation as to why the bans are happening. When people are posting private photos/saying thing about someone that you probably didn't want ever getting out--and for good reason, which is why we won't post or link to those photos despite receiving emails about it from numerous people--then you could see this all unfolding and realize it was about to get ugly.

But like we posted last week, David Sklansky is too old to be getting himself involved in this stuff, and he kind of brought it on to himself, which makes the bannings ultra-hypocritical. In fact, he should probably ban himself from the forum just to save face. Actually, 2+2 head honcho Mason Malmuth has more or less done that already:

We are also not happy with the performance of David Sklansky. From his point of view he was just trying to defend his family life, and I can emphatically state that the many problems and issues that have been stated on some of these forums are not true. However, in response to all of this, David has promised me not to post for a while, and when he does return, he will stick to strategy topics in the appropriate strategy forums where he certainly has a lot to offer. I will personally make sure that this is the case.

If there's a moral to this whole story it's this: Since the beginning of time, pretty girls always have always caused wars, and it's still happening today, even if it's juvenile banning wars involving a 60 year-old man on a poker forum.

First, let's just get this out of the way: David Sklansky is freaking 60 years-old. Eventually and at some stage, there comes a time in a man's life (like when he's 60) to stop trolling forums (even if it's your own forum) and posting sorted details of your personal (sex) life with women 30 to 40 years younger than you. Especially when it's not a sex forum for old dudes but a poker forum.

And even if one of those women is threatening you.

Sklansky starts thel latest dramabomb thread by writing:

For the last 2 1/2 years I have been living with a handicapped 23 year old girl named Sue. She is blind in one eye and partially blind in the other. She is slightly disfigured, slightly autistic, and has frequent seizures. She can't drive and can't distinguish left from right. The cause of these things is that she is the product of incest. But she has an IQ of 125, is very artistic and loves everybody. She especially loved Brandi and was also attracted to her.

He then goes on to say that after a post by Brandi slamming him was deleted on 2+2, Brandi threatened him with an email she asked to have forwarded to 2+2 Publishing owner Mason Malmuth:

If my thread is not put back up ~ OR if you EVER delete another post or thread of mine again (and ban me) ~ I will make sure that same post is on every single other poker forum out there... I'm going to do an interview with Wicked Chops and Raw Vegas Tv and NWP and Bankroll Boost and Pocket5s on Monday IF my thread is not posted back on the forum.

Sklansky then pulls an Eminem 8 Mile scenario where he airs all of his dirty laundry before Brandi can. For example, he confirms the story about a vibrator he pulled out of his glove compartment and put between Brandi's legs.

Anyway, a summary by us does not nearly do the whole Sklanksy write-up justice, so please go to 2+2 and read it for yourself.

And look for an interview with Brandi sometime in the near future (maybe).

Toronto police have charged Shaun David Rootenberg, a 40-year-old guy who is about as much of a poker player as Brandi Hawbaker is a porn star, which she may be depending how you look at it, for fraudulent business ventures in Canada and Florida worth an estimated $5.5 million.

It is alleged that Rootenberg, whose career tournament winnings amass a whopping $16.4k, from one tournament two years ago, presented himself as an investment broker and convinced a number of people to invest in businesses in which he had little or no involvement. When the victims became aware of the dubious claims, Rootenberger presented falsified checks drawn on several banks to repay the victims.

All in all, Rootenberg is being charged with eight counts of fraud, three counts of possession of property obtained by crime and two counts of failing to comply with probation.

In related news, some Nigerian guy who emailed us is about to make us even richer. Developing ...

Like all great women of the 21st century -- Paris, Keeley, Kim, Pamela, to name a few -- Brandi Hawbaker may be the star of a sex tape.

GSykes posted a link over at 2p2 this morning to a RedTube.con video labeled "Lickin' the Lollipop" showing a short-hair brunette girl who looks a lot like Brandi Hawbaker giving some dude wearing socks a Keeley Hazell, only a bit slower and less jerky.

The video starts off saying "Dedicated to: Brandon," which appears to be a reference to Brandi's ex-boyfriend Brandon "pimprexel". Pimprexel himself posted a link to the RedTube video over at NWP here.

If you don't know already (and like you don't know already), RedTube is a free porn site so if you're going to check out the link (NSFW), be warned. It's porn. And free. In case you missed it, here's the link (NSFW). Right here (NSFW). Totally free.

Did we mention it's porn?

Anyway, judge for yourself if it's Brandi or not. It does look a lot like her. Although we would have expected something a lot freakier than the junior high-ish, keep-your-clothes-on kind of suck job in the video. Sort of neutralizes the whole "getting even hotter" quotient of her possibly having a sex tape.

Thanks to our favorite pale, freckly, Nickelback lovin' Canadian ginger from Vancouver who we assume doesn't want to be named for the tip. Love you.

Just when you were thinking to yourself, "You know, after (allegedly) robbing her ex-boyfriend blind and spewing that money at Commerce, I don't think Brandi Hawbaker could possibly get any hotter now," lo and behold, something has surfaced that does in fact make her hotter.

Brandi Hawbaker's super-smoking-hot Sheriff's Card (at right), otherwise known as her Stripper's card, has surfaced on eBay. According to Neverwin Poker: "This was pretty much the only thing left in Brandon's cleaned out condo when they broke up. David Sklansky bought this card for [her]..."

Current asking price is $35. That's just a pittance for a piece of history, people.

This just hit NWP and all three Entities are watching while typing this, but Brandon "pimprexel" talks to Bryan Micon and gives everyone a "public service announcement" on Brandi Hawbaker (now Naami Dea), detailing all of the alleged allegations surrounding the sexy/hot/controversial poker princess (what she allegedly stole, the prostitution allegations, alleged bi-sexuality, alleged drugs of choice, and allegedly more).

How Wicked Chops Poker turned into the Brandi Hawbaker Network over the past 48 hours is beyond us, but whatever, it's great for ratings.

So we got word direct from the source that 2006 WSOP champ Jamie Gold never hooked up with Brandi (can we get a nickname for her from one of our readers? anyone?) as has been reported on WCP the forums. So let's strike that hook-up from the record for those keeping tabs at home. Didn't happen. Our apologies.

While 2+2'ers eagerly awaits a response from Brandi Hawbaker on her break-up dramabomb, hats off to poster THEHANDOFGOD for putting together the above graphic (click to enlarge). It got a chuckle out of us, which is tough because we don't like smiling. Uses too many muscles. Effort effort effort...

The pimprexel/Brandi Hawbakerbreak-up thread has blown up on 2+2, so much so that it even briefly crashed the famed forum's database.

So much gossip is being thrown around it's hard to even know where to start. Actually, no it's not:

:: David Sklansky, who kind of looks like he'd be Robert Varkonyi's father, responded to pimprexel's comment that, "...I am not sure if things I know about second hand or even have witnessed regarding others would be appropriate to disclose i.e sklansky, relationships with other well known pro's, things that she did to earn money during the world series etc. ." To which Sklansky said: "You have my permission to post anything that you think you know about me that is both important and is something you think I am keeping secret. Either do that or kindly retract your implication."

:: Sklansky later added this classic line in another post: "I'm not going to spend hours proving I didn'thave sex with three billy goats or whatever else you might claim she said." Read more on that thread page here.

:: However, Sklansky did admit he told Brandi to use the high rollers to get cash for buy-ins, etc. Brandi interpreted this as "let them bang you for money," which would explain why she suddenly stopped talking to Sklansky and ignored him when he bumped into her a few months later. More on that here.

:: We reported over the summer that there might've been something going on with Brandi and 2006 WSOP champ Jamie Gold. That relationship seems to have been confirmed in some of the posts. Read our story from this past summer here and a 2+2 thread here.

:: Brandi also is rumored to have banged Gus Hansen during the WSOP this summer. However, Gus being Gus wouldn't give her a penny. Shit, Gus bangs so many chicks he probably already forgot he nailed Brandi. "Which one is that. Ya not ringing a bell." But more on that here.

:: Brandi then also was reportedly with 2001 WSOP and 2007 WPT champCarlos Mortenson for a few weeks at the end of 2006. Read that thread here.

:: And finally, one poster ran a public records search on Brandi, and it turns out she may not be 25, but actually 32 or 33. More on that here.

All of this, of course, makes Brandi that much hotter. Now, the world poker forums await for Brandi to respond. Developing...

Unamazingly, pimprexel's relationship with Brandi went bad. Like, really, really bad. Like steal $40k in property and belongings while spewing it all at Commerce Casino while breaking your heart bad.

In this 2+2 post, pimprexel tells a story unfortunately told all too often: that of a dude who gets to bang a totally hot girl and because she's so hot and the sex is so good, the dude overlooks some red flags that the girl might be fucking crazy.

Pimprexel painstakingly admits he "made a mistake" by falling for Brandi and allowing her to explain away stuff like this:

"When I met Brandi, I was a pitboss in a casino in Vegas. While working one day, something told me to enter her name into a data base that casinos centrally use to collaborate information on cheats, barred patrons, prostitutes etc. I entered her name in hoping nothing would come back. Even expecting the worse, I was still shocked at with was displayed on the screen. Not only had she been barred from several casinos for loitering, bad checks, she had also been 86'd (casinos term for barred) for prostitution. Upon further examination, I found out she had been arrested several times in Las Vegas Casinos for soliciting undercover officers."

That's right, prostitution!

Pimprexel then took Brandi in, let her live with him, loaned her money ($5k at a time), but eventually broke up with her when she got too out of control. That's when the whole robbing his place blind occurred.

So that's the bad news. The good news is that Brandi is single, hot, and probably the best sex you'll ever have. Shouldn't someone be throwing a parade? Sure, after a few months with her you'll end up a shell of the man you were before, but that's what all girls do to dudes. At least you know what you're getting into with her. Or as poster "soccertease" on the Neverwin forum so aptly put it: "Something about this just makes her that much hotter."

For most people in poker, the following would not qualify as news, but Brandi Hawbaker is not most people in poker, because she's hot. Shit, if we found out that Brandi got a paper cut, we'd have some headline like, "BREAKING: Brandi Hawbaker, A Woman, Is Smoking Hot, Has a Paper Cut," so what the hell, here goes.

A reader forwarded us an email supposedly from Brandi where she explains where she's been lately and what she's been up to (cause it ain't been on the poker circuit).

And according to the email, Brandi has kicked all of her "bad" habits (drugs, booze) and "made the choice to convert to Judaism."

In a scientific poll where we interviewed all three of us Entities (margin of error 0%), we decided that Jewish girls are particularly hot, so this conversion to Judaism, if true, qualifies as the sexiest conversion of the year.

We'd post the entire email but that's not cool, plus we have no way of confirming if it's real or not. However, we'll note that if the email is a fraud, someone has way to much fucking time on their hands, because it's a few pages long.

We're not huge fans of the World Poker Tour's Steve Lipscomb but one thing the capitalistic commie lover got right lately was hiring pretty girl poker host Kimberly Lansing to do the WPT's online video reporting. Lansing, a USC grad who also does reporting for People Magazine and Hollywood.com, has been doing the WPT gig ever since Season VI got underway and has done so surprisingly without much fan fare. Looking at her WPT page on YouTube, her videos on average get just about 100 or so views which is about 14,533 less views than a video of paint drying.

This is strange since Lansing is way hotter to watch on video than paint drying.

For a sample of Lansing's engagingly goofy and charmingly cute approach to poker coverage, watch her latest video from the WPT Legends of Poker here.

Also worth the watch is Lansing's interview with the poker princess of narcissism Brandi Hawbaker, a must view for any would-be creepy stalker who wants to know where Hawbaker is living now in LA. Finally after the jump, our favorite Lansing videos so far, one with Erica Schoenberg and the other with Layla Kayleigh.

Our favorite narcissistic, freaky ass, dick-on-the-back, hot-enough-to-bang, ex-pageant poker playing chick Brandi Hawbaker was feeling and looking like crap yesterday at the 2007 World Series of Poker. Apparently she's suffering from a soar throat with strep like symptoms and disappeared for a few hours yesterday during the tournament to rest up.

Completely unrelated we hear that girls who contract chlamydia and gonorrhea through lots of oral sex with creepy old men have strep-like symptoms.

When we saw Hawbaker, it was late and she was seated next to Mimi Tran and was downing some prescribed red cough syrup like a champ. We didn't stay long as our penises felt unsafe but we heard that Hawbaker was soon after eliminated, telling Teddy "Iceman" Monroe to go fuck himself after he knocked her out.

After the jump, more photos of Brandi looking and feeling like crap yesterday.

WCP fave Brandi Hawbaker is the subject of our latest webisode of The TOKE. After a brief hiatus from the circuit, Hawbaker is back, looking pretty damn hot, getting some advice from creepy-old-man David Sklansky, and wanting to be a positive role model for women in poker. Step 1 of that plan should be to stop hanging around creepy-old-men like David Sklansky.

Anyway, we had a similar desire to be a more positive role model for poker bloggers by being more serious in our reporting, less assholey in our commentary, and more focused on finding the good in people, but then we decided, "fuck it." It was a surprisingly easy decision.

:: During a WSOP break, WCP fave Brandi Hawbaker issued a statement on 2+2 pulling a Peter Cetera and defending her honor. In it, Brandi says:

"What troubles me the most is that very few people know me, yet I am continually referred to as being a 'theif' and a 'whore'. This could not be further from the truth."

This is somewhat disappointing to us, cause we kind of dig morally casual thiefy chicks. Probably explains the 147 times one of us has woken up in a Vegas hotel, handcuffed to the bed, with our wallets missing after some girl told us she wanted to knock boots and listen to us talk about ourselves for a few hours. As we've said before, fool us once, shame on you...fool us 147 times, shame on us. Read the full 2+2 thread here.

:: The Vinnie Vinh rumor mill continues to swirl, with the latest grill for the mist (or whatever that fucking phrase is) coming from Shane "Shaniac" Schlegler. In a 2+2 post, Shaniac says:

"I heard from his backer that he's alive and that he's done this before. If I had to guess, I would say his current substance problem is meth not crack. Crack doesn't hasten the physical changes that were evident in Vinnie the way I understand meth does."

We've spoken with numerous pros about this (off the record), all who've lamented they think Vinh is currently "on meth." They all noted how thin Vinh appeared at the start of the WSOP, some not even recognizing him until he referred to himself in third person. Trust us*, meth is bad. And by "bad" we mean "fucking rad."

Read the full 2+2 thread here and view photos of her at the 2007 WSOP here.

Walking around the Rio we actually heard Brandi Rose was one of the chipleaders early on. While we were thinking of heading over to her table to see how she was doing, we were strongly advised by our penises not to walk within 50 feet of her. Those poor guys are still scarred from yesterday. Apparently the sighting conjured up memories of that sweltering summer in Chile with the Suárez sisters that required a truckload and a half of penicillin to clear things up. Snake's penis, obviously in shock, was even whimpering in Spanish "No, Lupita, no mas, mi cojones en fuego. No mas."

Thankfully, the Wicked Chops Poker camera felt brave in a Red Dawn "Wolverines" kind of way and headed on over to snap some photos of Brandi, which you can see after the jump.

UPDATE: Not that you want to see a photo of Brandi getting her back rubbed, but we've updated this post with a photo of Brandi getting her back rubbed, after the jump.

Sure, we could direct you to the NeverWinPoker thread or 2+2 thread that show screen grabs of Erica Schoenberg dropping the top on Carmen Electra's Strip Poker DVD, but that wouldn't be right. Unlike the Brandi Hawbakers and Chantel McNultys of the poker world, Erica's a classy girl. She's a sweet, small-town Midwesterner who won math competitions as a youngster, played volleyball competitively and had the courage to head off to Hollywood to pursue a career in acting and modeling. She's bright, poised and is certainly in no way superficial as evidenced by her faithful devotion to her much, much older and much, much rounder poker playing fiance, David Benyamine.

And while we're aware that most of what we just said sounds like the bio of the average porn star, Erica's far from the average porn star. She's a soft core porn star, if a porn star at all. Not that we think of her as a soft core porn star but if we did, she'd be the crème de la crème of soft core porn stars, the kind of porn star you'd be fine with dating 'cause she wasn't the penis receptacle kind of porn star but the . . . crap, what was the point we were making . . . oh yeah, the point is that whether Erica's appearance in the Strip Poker DVD was a regrettable act of naive ambition in the hopes of making it big in Hollywood or, paraphrasing Shaniac on 2 + 2, something she's probably proud of having participated in, we're not sure. What we do know is Erica Schoenberg is really nice to look at as evidence by the Wicked Chops Poker photos after the jump from yesterday's $1,000 Rebuy NLHE event at the 2007 WSOP.

Hanging with the crew at ThePokerBiz.com as Event #8 broke for dinner, we saw Jamie Gold in his all-too-familiar-from-last-year rapid hallway shuffle to the pisser, sans the bodyguards, with none other than the freaky ass Brandi Hawbaker hot on his heels spreading pestilence on unsuspecting passerbys.

Our penises curiously gazed at the narcissistic, hot-enough-to-bang, flame tosser but thankfully the penises were smart enough to dive for cover as she got closer. They may not look it, but our penises are frickin' Einsteins . . . that is, if Einstein was known for sensing the herp from a few steps away.

So what's up with Brandi Hawbaker and Jamie Gold palling around? Is the 2006 WSOP champ "backing" the former pageant girl? Is she the next member of Team BuzzNation? Will our penises' curiosities ever get the best of them?

Well, ThePokerBiz.com team of writers have already jumped on the Jamie Gold-Brandi Hawbaker sighting, so read about it there. We on the other hand are busy trying to convince our penises it's OK to come out now.

We didn't quite make it through this video of Brandi Hawbaker at the Mandalay Bay Poker Championship since it focuses just on her face and has her talking the whole time, but if we had to guess what she was talking about we'd go with Russia's recent missile test, the crisis in Darfur, Chavez's widening attack on opposition media in Venezuela and how she can't get enough dick. Oh, we also assume that she stays humble the whole time and doesn't come across as a narcissistic, two-bit, Paris Hilton wannabe.

Flame tosser, ex-beauty pageant-er, amateur poker player Brandi Hawbaker, who it's worth noting is about a 6.9 in the looks department (for the lack of a better number), an absolute perfect 10 in the nipples that you could cut glass with/hang your coat on department and off the freakin' charts in the freaky ass chicks department (which is what makes her most bangable, to us), may or may not be posting lasciviously graphic comments over at the NeverwinPoker forum about wanting to porno-ficate like an ecstasy-soused banshee with none other than Brian "King of All Degenerates" Micon.

Whether or not it is actually Brandi (Witteles says so and Neverwin vouches), we don't know/care, and if it is, whether or not it's just her/them getting her/their rocks off, we don't know/care. Regardless, it's some entertaining reading, at times, and as a bonus, offers some new NSFW pics of Brandi, if you're digging her.

To get started, begin with the first "Brandi" post down at the bottom of this page, and proceed from there.

A hot enough to bang, freaky as heck, 24-year-old, poker playing chick handing over her bankroll to an old time poker pro and instead of getting help at the table she allegedly gets the old guy's Viagara-soused penis laid up on her back in the middle of the night. It's the Brandi Hawbaker (at right) and Captain Tom Franklin soap opera that's been playing out over at the 2+2 forums and if you're not up to speed, get clued in. Last we checked there were more than 120 pages of replies. You'd think with these kind of allegations and all the interest we'd be all over this story but to be honest some of us have been too busy soaking up some California sun to bother and besides stories about penises and old men with nicknames like Captain creep us out.

After the jump, a really bad video of Brandi "Rose" Hawbaker being freaky with fire sticks. Really, this girl is a total freak and we love her for it. Also be sure to check out the Neverwin forum for some NSFW photos purported to be of Brandi. Did we mention she's a total freak? Love it.